


as well as your folly

by addandsubtract



Series: keep it together [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addandsubtract/pseuds/addandsubtract
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles isn’t sure when he started to feel old, but he thinks it’s mostly that he needs a shower, and to sleep, and to think about how he’s going to apologize to Jackson and Lydia on Monday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as well as your folly

**Author's Note:**

> so I asked for prompts for the timestamp meme on my journal, and [queenitsy](http://queenitsy.livejournal.com) told me to write about six months after the end of _new ways to fall apart_. it got longer than it was supposed to.
> 
> all errors and typos are mine, so feel free to point them out!

Another full moon, and Stiles is stumbling back to his house covered in mud and blood, letting the rain drip from the tip of his nose and down the back of his neck. It’s a drizzle more than anything, but he’s walked home, too shaky to trust himself driving. The long months of peace are over, and the Argents’ blood war is taking its toll. Even though he’s not a werewolf, tonight he had to staunch a bleeding knife wound gouged into Derek’s stomach. Derek had panted, blank faced and white-knuckled, and hadn’t protested, but that hadn’t made it _better_. And it doesn’t mean that Scott is safe now, or that he’ll ever, ever be. Him and everyone else, for that matter.

Stiles isn’t sure when he started to feel old, but he thinks it’s mostly that he needs a shower, and to sleep, and to think about how he’s going to apologize to Jackson and Lydia on Monday. Especially because he’s going to need a ride back to his jeep, and most of the reason they’re mad is that they don’t understand how he can let Scott mix him up in this shit. As if he has a choice, really. It’s possible that loyalty is different, for them.

One stroke of luck: his father is actually asleep – lights off, door closed – when he gets inside, and Stiles doesn’t trip on anything, or knock over a lamp, or accidentally slam the front door, so he toes off his shoes and climbs the stairs to his bedroom without making undue noise. He does smudge the wall with muddy, bloody water on his way up, but hopefully it’ll dry some kind of nondescript brown that he can wash of or explain away before it becomes a _thing_.

He pushes open the door to his bedroom, and stops, still, in the doorway. His window is open, and Jackson and Lydia are asleep, curled up on his bed in their underwear. Like Jackson hadn’t slammed him back against his locker after practice this morning, face white and livid, like Lydia hadn’t given him that sad, unsurprised curl of a smile after World History and fiddled with her long sleeves. He takes a careful breath, deep, and lets it shake out of him. All he wants is to shuck off his clothes and climb in-between them, still damp and dirty and stained with Derek’s blood. But even though they’re here, he’s not entirely sure he’s welcome, and he doesn’t want to – dirty them, that way. So instead he tiptoes carefully backward and heads for the shower.

He turns the water scalding, but doesn’t have the energy to do much more than stand there and let the muck run off of him and down the drain. Eventually he works up the energy to turn off the water, step out of the tub, and towel himself off. He leaves his clothes on the floor to dry – his father has his own bathroom, so it’s safe, and they’re not so obviously bloody anyway – and heads back to his room.

Lydia is sitting up, Jackson still curled up against her side, eyeing him with her mouth set in a straight line. He waves, because he’s still shaky, and he can’t deal with her being mad at him right now, and he turns away to tug on a pair of boxer shorts.

“The shower woke me up,” she says, voice soft, and he makes a noise of assent. He pulls a t-shirt out of a drawer, and goes to the bed. He sits on the edge of the mattress, carefully by her feet, but he’s not sure how to look at her right now, because this – this thing that the three of them have mostly works. It mostly does, usually, but when it doesn’t, when Jackson gets jealous, or Lydia gets annoyed, or Stiles – well, Stiles does his best not to rock the boat, to be honest. But when it doesn’t work, there is so much shit flying his way all the time on a normal basis that he doesn’t know how to deal with any more of it. He’s treading water, really. He needs them to help him.

“We don’t mean to get upset,” Lydia says, still soft, and her toes are pressing lightly against the dip where his back meets his hip. “I just don’t see how you’re not scared out of your mind all the time. How can you keep doing it? You’re smarter than that, Stiles.”

“How am I supposed to _not_?” Stiles asks, helplessly.

“You’re going to get yourself killed.” And that’s Jackson, muffled from where his face is tucked against Lydia’s bare hip, eyes half-lidded, and Stiles chest aches with the fact that they’re here, waiting for him, even though they don’t have to be.

“Your best friend isn’t a werewolf, dude,” Stiles says. “What if it was Danny?”

“Danny’s not nearly as stupid as McCall is,” Jackson says, with a yawn, “and I’m not as stupid as you are.”

Lydia snorts, and Stiles silently agrees with her. Danny actually is smarter than Scott, probably, as much as his loyalty won’t allow him to say it aloud, but Jackson isn’t exactly the king of common sense. 

Lydia’s hand is on the back of Jackson’s head, fingernails threading through his hair, and Stiles is okay with them not approving – Peter Hale almost killed Lydia, and Jackson was two inches from being turned – but he can’t deal with this part of it, where they’re angry at him for caring. Or maybe for putting himself in danger, who’s to say, really, with the two of them?

“This isn’t going away,” he makes himself say, because he knows that he should and he’s always been the person to rip the band-aid off. Even if, generally, he’d rather swallow nails or let Derek turn him. “So, if. You know, if this is a thing, that, like. You guys can’t do, that’s fine, I guess. I still have to. Someone has to make sure that no one dies, and, unfortunately, it’s mostly just me. So. If you can’t, I’ll – leave you alone, or something. I can probably do that.”

“Jesus,” Jackson says, “shut the fuck up.” He sounds annoyed, lips pursed, cheeks flushed with heat, still pressed against Lydia and not budging. Stiles can see the freckles scattered across his nose. It’s pretty unfair how attractive he is.

“I’m just saying, I know neither of you are really all about the werewolf thing, especially the me-getting-bled-on thing, so –”

“It’s not you getting bled _on_ , dumbass,” Jackson interrupts, “it’s you _bleeding_.” He says it like it’s physically difficult for him to force the words past his lips, which is sort of touching, in a fucked-up, Jackson kind of way.

“I haven’t gotten shot yet,” Stiles starts, and this time it’s Lydia who interrupts him.

“But you might,” she says. Her voice is quiet, but forceful. Like she’s ever anything but.

Stiles is silent for a long moment. He shifts on the bed so that he’s fully facing them, sitting cross-legged with his hands in his lap. Lydia’s foot is still brushing against his shin, and he kind of wants to touch her, run his fingers along her calf, but he doesn’t. “Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. It could happen, I mean – let’s be honest, it’s kind of miracle that it hasn’t yet. And so if you need to – if we shouldn’t –”

“No, really, shut the fuck up,” Jackson says. “Where are we right now, asshole?”

“Uh,” he says. “In my bedroom? But I don’t –”

“Waiting for you,” Lydia says. “As if we’d be doing anything else tonight. As if we’d _be_ anywhere else tonight.” She’s giving him that small smile, the one that curls at the edges, which means he’s being especially thick and she’s waiting for him to catch up.

“You’re actually worried about me,” Stiles says, because his mouth is always half a step ahead of his brain, and the warmth curling up through his chest is distracting enough. Soothing the ache there. They’re both looking at him like he’s particularly dense, now, and maybe he is. He’s never really been the best at understanding people, not really. Especially the two he’s in a relationship with.

“Obviously,” Jackson says, withering. “Though I really can’t figure out why.”

“We’re not breaking up over this,” Lydia says, with the steel in her voice, “but you’re coming back. And if they let you get hurt, I’m not going to forget it.”

Stiles isn’t sure what to say to that – it’s sort of too hot for him to process – so he doesn’t say anything. Lydia reaches out for him, then, and he lets her pull him down between them, where he’s wanted to be since trudging up the stairs and finding them waiting for him. She curls up facing him, and he presses his face underneath her chin, her hair falling over his ear and the side of his neck, smelling clean and floral. She hooks one ankle around his, like she’s making sure he won’t go anywhere, and he doesn’t mind. When they’ve settled, Jackson slides in behind him, arm curving over Stiles’s stomach and pushing up underneath his t-shirt, palm flat against the skin of his chest, over his heart. Jackson is solid and warm at Stiles’s back, his breath humid on the nape of Stiles’s neck. For the first time since the sun set, Stiles feels safe. He thinks that maybe this is one less thing to be scared of. It doesn’t take him long to sleep.


End file.
